ZT Insider Blog
Friday, June 12, 2009
Hi, I’m Ken and I’m an amp-o-holic. I’m also co-founder and chief oscilloscope jockey at ZT Amplifiers in Berkeley, CA. There is a lot of interesting background to the ZT story, and I’m looking forward to sharing it here on the “blog” section of our website. I’ll be writing as the spirit moves me, hopefully at least once a month. I’ll cover all kinds of topics, and take requests, from ZT philosophy and history, to industry war stories, to undiluted technical discussions. I’ll also do my best to try and get other ZToids to contribute here from time to time, too. Just so you know, I tend to be a somewhat free-associative writer. Given a choice, I’d rather do that than spew out a stream of industry jargon and rock and roll buzz words. So, forgive me if I occasionally veer off into arcane subjects or what may seem like flashes of temporary insanity. On the other hand, if you ever catch me using a particularly bad cliché, without my tongue planted firmly in my cheek, shoot me (an email.)
Onward! OK, the story all starts with a pre-CBS Bandmaster, which my Dad begrudgingly bought for me through a classified ad, for the whopping 1966 sum of $15. The seller threw in a Framus Hollywood, semi-hollow body guitar, trivia hounds, for another $15. Yeah, my Dad was pretty cheap about this, but I’m sure he didn’t expect my childish interest to last 40 more years, or blossom into an actual way to earn a living. Plus, I think he smirked a little sadistic smirk every time my curiosity or ambitions brought me into rude contact with the B+ voltage, as long as one hand was safely behind my back.
Despite these occasional shocks, I was hooked bad. All through junior high and high school I built custom amps, effects and speakers, and did concert sound and recording. In college, it was on to the formal study of audio electronics and human sound perception, all the while paying bills by doing design work for many of the innovative audio companies in the Boston area. (I also worked for a while at a bakery, a food co-operative and the Museum of Science… but what has that got to do with this romanticized engineer’s coming of age story?)
After finishing grad school, and another year doing a research fellowship in technology and media theory, my best job offer came from an esteemed hifi company in England. OK, it wasn’t guitar amps or great money, but hey, they offered to help me set up a small project studio in North London and let me work on amp design. It was scary, the idea of fending for myself in a foreign land, and I dreaded the thought of having to get up at the same time every day. Still, London in 1982 was a place that seemed very much in tune with my musical and spiritual sensibilities, so I was off!
I’ll talk about the scene I found there in some future column but, for now, let me finish up the autobiographical theme. In London, I became immersed in the realities of large-scale product design, manufacturing and marketing. I learned how to apply guerilla tactics to the production process in order to build “high end” gear with the cost advantages of mass production . It didn’t take long for me to realize that I wanted to do this with my life…